Federalist Paper Number 10
After the Convention in Philadelphia it was far from certain that the states would agree to and ratify this new
Constitution. As state conventions convened to decide whether to accept it or not a fierce publicity campaign
was waged by both supporters (Federalists) and detractors (Anti-federalists).
The Federalists had the advantage in leadership with the likes of George Washington and Ben Franklin, two of
the most eminent men of their day. They also had the support of the ablest political philosophers of their time:
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. These three men under the pseudonym “Publius” wrote a
series of essays explaining the meaning and virtues of the Constitution. The collected essays are known today
as The Federalist Papers.
After reading Federalist Paper No. 10, answer the following questions in complete sentences.
1. What does Madison believe is the advantage of a “well-constructed Union”?
2. How are conflicts too often decided in unstable governments? Whose rights are denied when this happens?
3. What are two ways in which Madison believes factions can be dealt with?
4. Describe his argument for liberty. What metaphor does he employ?
5. What is the “first object of Government”?
6. Does Madison believe that Man is inherently good or evil? How does this affect his belief in the role of
government?
7. What does Madison say about factions’ causes and effects?
8. Why have Democracies failed according to Madison?
9. What form of government promises the cure?
10. What are two problems inherent in this form of government? (Hint – it has something to do with its size)
11. How does he relate this form of government to the dynamic of the Union and the States composing it?
Federalist Paper Number 10
To the People of the State of New York:
Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately
developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments
never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to
this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the
principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and confusion
introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments
have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to
liberty derive their most specious declamations. The valuable improvements made by the American
constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it
would be an unwarrantable partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger on this side,
as was wished and expected. Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous
citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments
are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too
often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of
an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no
foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. It will be
found, indeed, on a candid review of our situation, that some of the distresses under which we labor have been
erroneously charged on the operation of our governments; but it will be found, at the same time, that other
causes will not alone account for many of our heaviest misfortunes; and, particularly, for that prevailing and
increasing distrust of public engagements, and alarm for private rights, which are echoed from one end of the
continent to the other. These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which
a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.
By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole,
who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of
other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.
There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by
controlling its effects.
There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is
essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the
same interests.
It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to
faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish
liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation
of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.
The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues
fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists
between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each
other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of
men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests.
The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal
faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results;
and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of
the society into different interests and parties.
The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into
different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different
opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of
practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons
of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided
mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and
oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall
into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful
distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But
the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property.
Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who
are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing
interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized
nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of
these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of
party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.
No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and,
not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both
judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation, but so many
judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of single persons, but concerning the rights of large
bodies of citizens? And what are the different classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes
which they determine? Is a law proposed concerning private debts? It is a question to which the creditors are
parties on one side and the debtors on the other. Justice ought to hold the balance between them. Yet the
parties are, and must be, themselves the judges; and the most numerous party, or, in other words, the most
powerful faction must be expected to prevail. Shall domestic manufactures be encouraged, and in what
degree, by restrictions on foreign manufactures? are questions which would be differently decided by the
landed and the manufacturing classes, and probably by neither with a sole regard to justice and the public
good. The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the
most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are
given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling with which they overburden the
inferior number, is a shilling saved to their own pockets.
It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them
all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. Nor, in many cases,
can such an adjustment be made at all without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will
rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another or the
good of the whole.
The inference to which we are brought is, that the causes of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only
to be sought in the means of controlling its effects.
If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the
majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society;
but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is
included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling
passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private
rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular
government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed. Let me add that it is the great
desideratum by which this form of government can be rescued from the opprobrium under which it has so long
labored, and be recommended to the esteem and adoption of mankind.
By what means is this object attainable? Evidently by one of two only. Either the existence of the same passion
or interest in a majority at the same time must be prevented, or the majority, having such coexistent passion or
interest, must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes
of oppression. If the impulse and the opportunity be suffered to coincide, we well know that neither moral nor
religious motives can be relied on as an adequate control. They are not found to be such on the injustice and
violence of individuals, and lose their efficacy in proportion to the number combined together, that is, in
proportion as their efficacy becomes needful.
From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting
of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure
for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the
whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check
the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies
have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal
security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in
their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously
supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time,
be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.
A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different
prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from
pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive
from the Union.
The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the
government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of
citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.
The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them
through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their
country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial
considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the
representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people
themselves, convened for the purpose. On the other hand, the effect may be inverted. Men of factious
tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first
obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people. The question resulting is, whether small or
extensive republics are more favorable to the election of proper guardians of the public weal; and it is clearly
decided in favor of the latter by two obvious considerations:
In the first place, it is to be remarked that, however small the republic may be, the representatives must be
raised to a certain number, in order to guard against the cabals of a few; and that, however large it may be,
they must be limited to a certain number, in order to guard against the confusion of a multitude. Hence, the
number of representatives in the two cases not being in proportion to that of the two constituents, and being
proportionally greater in the small republic, it follows that, if the proportion of fit characters be not less in the
large than in the small republic, the former will present a greater option, and consequently a greater probability
of a fit choice.
In the next place, as each representative will be chosen by a greater number of citizens in the large than in the
small republic, it will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to practice with success the vicious arts by which
elections are too often carried; and the suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to centre in
men who possess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and established characters.
It must be confessed that in this, as in most other cases, there is a mean, on both sides of which
inconveniences will be found to lie. By enlarging too much the number of electors, you render the
representatives too little acquainted with all their local circumstances and lesser interests; as by reducing it too
much, you render him unduly attached to these, and too little fit to comprehend and pursue great and national
objects. The federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect; the great and aggregate interests
being referred to the national, the local and particular to the State legislatures.
The other point of difference is, the greater number of citizens and extent of territory which may be brought
within the compass of republican than of democratic government; and it is this circumstance principally which
renders factious combinations less to be dreaded in the former than in the latter. The smaller the society, the
fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and
interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same party; and the smaller the number of
individuals composing a majority, and the smaller the compass within which they are placed, the more easily
will they concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of
parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to
invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to
discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other. Besides other impediments, it may be
remarked that, where there is a consciousness of unjust or dishonorable purposes, communication is always
checked by distrust in proportion to the number whose concurrence is necessary.
Hence, it clearly appears, that the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the
effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic, -- is enjoyed by the Union over the States
composing it. Does the advantage consist in the substitution of representatives whose enlightened views and
virtuous sentiments render them superior to local prejudices and schemes of injustice? It will not be denied that
the representation of the Union will be most likely to possess these requisite endowments. Does it consist in
the greater security afforded by a greater variety of parties, against the event of any one party being able to
outnumber and oppress the rest? In an equal degree does the increased variety of parties comprised within the
Union, increase this security. Does it, in fine, consist in the greater obstacles opposed to the concert and
accomplishment of the secret wishes of an unjust and interested majority? Here, again, the extent of the Union
gives it the most palpable advantage.
The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread
a general conflagration through the other States. A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a
part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national
councils against any danger from that source. A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal
division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of
the Union than a particular member of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more likely to taint a
particular county or district, than an entire State.
In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the diseases
most incident to republican government. And according to the degree of pleasure and pride we feel in being
republicans, ought to be our zeal in cherishing the spirit and supporting the character of Federalists.
PUBLIUS.